Philip Hammond: Last November, the Conservative party released figures showing that since 1996-97 there had been a 400,000 increase in the number of people living in severe poverty before housing costs. On 29 November, the Secretary of State responded to that by saying that income after housing costs was the proper measure, and I note that he just used that term again.
	Departmental publications are very clear on the point. "Measuring child poverty" states that the Government will use a before-housing-costs measure. "Delivering on Child Poverty", published only last November, says:
	"Relative low-income households are defined as those with income below 60 per cent of ... median income before housing costs."
	Will the Secretary of State make clear whether he is telling us that he has changed his policy on the future measurement of child poverty? Is "after housing costs" now the Government's preferred and only measure?

Rob Marris: Some of the safeguards that my hon. Friend announced, particularly the second one, are foreshadowed by clause 8, which usefully states that the statistics board may
	"report any concerns it has about...good practice in relation to any official statistics...The Board may publish its findings or any report under this section."
	If the board believes that that pre-release statistics have been misused by Ministers, it can make a public statement, as it is accountable to Parliament rather than to Ministers. Is that not another safeguard in the Bill?

John Healey: My hon. Friend, with his customary close attention to detail, is right. The general duty that the statistics board will have in relation to coverage, good practice and the standard of all official statistics will allow it, as I indicated earlier, to report strongly where it perceives flaws or failures. In addition to that, as I made clear to the House, we will put a specific statutory duty on the new statistics board to report publicly to the House on the compliance of officials and Ministers with the new code on pre-release.
	Furthermore, I can announce to the House today that the Government are committed to the principle of creating a central publication hub, which many commentators called for, through which all national statistics would be published under the new system, thereby separating statistical release from policy comment.
	Let me mention briefly three other aspects of the Bill that have generally been widely welcomed. The first is data sharing and confidentiality. Clauses 35 to 43 provide for the flows of information that currently exist between the Office for National Statistics and other bodies to continue under the new regime. However, we are using the opportunity of the Bill to put in place a framework to allow data sharing for statistical purposes only, and we are also putting in place tougher sanctions and safeguards to protect confidentiality.
	As was pointed out to us forcefully in the consultation, data sharing has the potential to bring real benefits in improved statistical analysis, and therefore to the evidence base for policy making and better resource allocation. It also, as I noted earlier, reduces the burden on businesses and individuals of completing surveys, particularly on information already held by Government. Following the strong support that we received for these plans in the consultation, the Bill includes in clauses 44 to 50 provisions to allow Treasury Ministers, a Northern Ireland Department or Scottish Ministers with consent from the Treasury to make regulations for increased data sharing between public authorities and the board.
	All proposals to allow greater or new administrative data sharing will be subject to further debate and approval by the House. They will also be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. Clause 36 contains comprehensive safeguards enforced by criminal penalties for the unlawful disclosure of information which identifies individuals or businesses.
	A second aspect that has generally been welcomed concerns the registration function which is currently carried out by the National Statistician and the Office for National Statistics as the Registrar General. The historically close relationship between the statistics and registration services inevitably means that there will be consequential changes to the registration service, which at present is administratively part of the Office for National Statistics. As part of our reforms, we must deal with that situation.
	We have been considering in particular the position of the General Register Office and of the NHS Central Register within the machinery of government. I can confirm to the House that there was general support in the consultation for the proposals to separate the GRO and the NHSCR from the ONS, and to retain these functions under ministerial responsibility. The details are being worked out. The transfer is therefore not provided for in the Bill, but will be carried out by a subsequent transfer of functions order. During the period of transition, the statistics board will be able to provide services and continue providing services, should those be required, to the GRO or the NHSCR.
	I do not want the Second Reading debate pass without mention of one final aspect of the Bill. It is one on which I have worked closely over a number of years, but not as closely and not as long as has my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon). We are using the Bill as an opportunity to establish proper employment status and rights for registrars in England and Wales. I know that my hon. Friend attaches great importance to that objective, which he has worked on for a long time—he has served with distinction as the president of the Society of Registration Officers.
	Registrars provide a vital service, which benefits the whole community. However, while they are statutory officers appointed and paid by the local authority, they are not employed by the local authority. They can only be dismissed by the Registrar General, and consequently they do not enjoy the rights and protections that are taken for granted by other groups of workers, such as access to an employment tribunal. The Bill will make the 1,700 registration officers into local government employees and give them access for the first time to the rights and protections that are already available to others. It will also ensure that registration officers retain their current terms and conditions on transfer to local authority employment.
	In summary, the Bill is a step forward in what will be a major and evolving programme of reform to our statistical system. It holds out the possibility of substantially improving the quality of and confidence in official statistics. We are introducing a framework that can lead to a world-class statistics system capable of meeting the changing demands of a modern economy and of a modern society for reliable statistics. I commend the Bill to the House.

Theresa Villiers: In scrutinising this Bill, the Opposition's goal is to restore public trust in official figures by taking politicians out of the process of the production and release of Government statistics and removing their power to manipulate and spin the figures for their own short-term political ends, which is a vitally important task in securing more honesty, integrity and trust in politics today.
	The Financial Secretary and I are at one on the importance of the task that faces the House this afternoon and on the importance of statistics. The 19th-century Belgian statistician Quetelet once stated that
	"The statistician keeps his fingers on the pulse of humanity and gives the necessary warning when things are not as they should be."
	More recently, John Hollis of the British Society for Population Studies has pointed out that
	"National Statistics are vital to public policy and to decisions made throughout the public and private sectors. These decisions and policies affect the lives of each of us. Billions of pounds are allocated on the basis of National Statistics."
	Public trust in statistics must surely be at an all-time low—hence the hollow laughter that greeted Her Majesty's announcement of this Bill in the Gracious Speech. According to an ONS survey, 17 per cent. of people—fewer than one in five—believe that official statistics are produced without political interference. I must say that I have not met many of the 17 per cent. who believe in the probity and objectivity of this Government's treatment of official statistics.
	Let us take just a few examples. Manipulation of NHS figures has become notorious under Labour, with trolleys having their wheels removed or being reclassified as "beds on wheels" to massage A and E waiting time figures. The Governor of the Bank of England no less recently criticised the Government for their failure to produce reliable migration figures and their inability to answer the basic question of how many people actually live in this country.

Fiona Mactaggart: The hon. Lady is doing something that I counselled hon. Members not to do, by assuming that politicians act in that way to bury bad news. I am sure that sometimes they do, but it is not the case on most occasions. Politicians on both sides of the House who conspire in assuming that it is the case most of the time undermine trust in politics. I believe, perhaps naively, that most people in politics, whatever their party, genuinely work for what they believe is the public good, and do not wish to connive in concealing the truth from the public. We are making a mistake when we imply that misrepresentation is widespread—the normal pattern of behaviour. I do not believe that it is.
	What most undermines trust in official statistics is questionable accuracy. The Government will always get the blame. Let us take as an example a statistical series that most people do not believe is connived at or spun by Ministers. I refer to the census and the mid-year census statistics, which are more overseen by Parliament than any other statistical series that I can think of.
	In August the leader of Slough borough council said:
	"By now most people realise that the Government continues to underestimate the population of Slough".
	In his new year message he wrote:
	"We...hope that 2007 will be the year in which the Government finally corrects the serious under-funding of Slough...Our population is not falling rapidly, as the Government has maintained."
	He is right to say that our population is not falling rapidly, but he is not right to say that the Government maintain that it is falling rapidly. The way in which the mid-year estimates between censuses work for Slough is just plain wrong.
	We are making a mistake in the way in which we conduct the debate if we imply that it is politicians' behaviour that undermines public confidence. That may happen sometimes, which is why it is right for the Bill to put safeguards in place. Public confidence in statistics is also undermined when parts of the statistics are wrong. For example, the way in which census figures got it wrong for Westminster was raised by that council powerfully in 2001, when there was a massive mismatch between the final count in the census and the council's mid-year estimates. I was privileged to go with my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) to make representations to the Treasury Minister then responsible, because I could see that her point that Westminster had been wrongly treated had some aspects in common with Slough's case.
	Slough at that time had the ninth largest increase in population, according to the 2001 census—unlike Westminster, which was estimated to have had a massive fall in population. Nevertheless, I could see that the diversity of our populations, the churn and so on, meant that the kind of flaws to which Westminster had been subject could also affect the constituency that I represent. I am glad I that I did that. The mid-year population estimates for Slough suddenly produced an incomprehensible fall in our population. We had had the ninth largest increase in the country in our population between 1999 and 2001—yet we are told that in the years since 2001, we have had the second biggest fall in population. That is utterly counter-intuitive.
	The mid-year estimate formula uses birth rate, which is an accurate national data set. Slough's percentage growth is greater than the national figure. We have more births, and so more people. The formula also uses death rates, another accurate national data set. Slough's decline is less than the national figure. We have fewer deaths, and so more people. Furthermore, the formula uses migration, which is where the errors largely arise.
	Migration has two components. One is internal migration—within the country—which is based on GP registrations. If one looks at the scatter graph for GP registrations, it is striking that the outliers for accuracy are all places with extremely diverse ethnic populations, such as Luton, Slough, Hackney and Brent. In our town, 17 GPs have closed their books, and we have a walk-in centre, which many members of our population use instead of a GP. We have three times the national proportion of young men, who we know do not tend to register with GPs, and first-time registrations do not count. All these factors mean that in effect, the internal migration figures discriminate against Slough.
	It is disappointing to see that in 2003 the population survey note from the ONS suggests that there is no urgent need to change the internal population assessment, but the ONS has recognised that the international migration assessment based on the international passenger survey does need changing. I am glad that that work is under way, and I hope that it might make a difference in the area that I represent, but the changes that it proposes are unlikely to impact quickly. The recent report, published in December last year, suggests that there will not be swift results in any individual locality.
	Problems arise when statistical series are wrong, when they conflict with other statistical series and when there is not a sufficiently effective way of remedying errors. I hope that the duties created in clauses 7 and 8 in relation to national statistics will produce a mechanism for a more effective remedy to such problems. I have spoken at length to Ministers about the flaws in the calculation and the impact that that is having on the town that I represent. It will not do. Another thing that will not do is the fact that remedying a statistical series takes so long, while the consequences continue.
	It is right that executive action should be separate. The Department for Communities and Local Government says that the funding of local authorities must be based on the best estimate of local population. Everyone in the House would agree. But the speed at which the ONS recognises and remedies the flaws in its system, and the consequences for a town like ours, are problematic. By bringing to the fore the integrity, accuracy and impartiality of national statistics, I hope that the Bill will give us a better way of remedying some of the problems.
	Not every local authority can drum up the resources that Westminster council had at its disposal to produce evidence that the statistics on its population were flawed. Slough's evidence is compelling. The council has even counted the amount of shit that goes through our local sewers, which is considerably greater than it was 10 years ago.  [Interruption.] I am sure that was not a parliamentary word. I am sorry.
	We must try to ensure that errors in statistics are dealt with. Unless the independence that the Bill rightly provides is combined with transparent and robust ways of remedying errors and a dynamic relationship with people who are affected, we will not get the trust in statistics that the Bill seeks to achieve.

Michael Fallon: The problem is that some PFI liabilities are classified on balance sheet and some are not. Indeed, some do not seem to be classified altogether—special purpose vehicles are not properly classified in private accounts, let alone in public accounts. The public need to know how it is properly decided which liabilities are classified on public balance sheet and which are not, because the totality of PFI liabilities is, of course, very much greater than it was.
	The treatment of Network Rail was so tortuous that we had a special inquiry into it. We discovered that the Auditor General was defining the classification of Network Rail in a different way from the national statistician—one of them said that it was public, while the other said that it was private—and we worked hard on an all-party basis to try to resolve the difference. It is clearly nonsense to argue that an organisation such as Network Rail, which the Government stand behind, somehow has nothing to do with the Secretary of State. That is the kind of issue that the new independent statistics board should be able to settle for once and for all, rather than leaving it on the current shifting basis, which involves questions about who appoints the non-executive directors and waiting to see the degree of management control exercised by the Secretary of State. I welcome the new board's responsibility for making decisions on such issues, which will no longer be left to be disputed between two public officials—the Comptroller and Auditor General and the national statistician—or by a parliamentary Committee.
	The crux of the Bill concerns the classification of expenditure as between capital and current. I want to take the House back to the curious events that took place in February 2005, when just six weeks before the end of the financial year some £3.4 billion-worth of roads maintenance was suddenly reclassified as investment rather than current expenditure, thus making a significant difference to the outcome of the Chancellor's rules. It turned out that that had not been dreamed up by the ONS but came out of work involving the Statistics Commission, which said in a report on one of its investigations:
	"issues regarding Highways Agency accounting for roads discussed...at a public service data group meeting on the basis of an HMT paper."
	When I asked the Chancellor in the Treasury Committee who had instigated the work that led to that rather convenient revision, he snapped back at me:
	"This is entirely a matter for the statistics authorities. They are totally independent in the matter."
	He went on to say that
	"the independence of the Office for National Statistics is clear and obvious."
	Perhaps it is not quite so clear and obvious now, given that Ministers have had to come before the House to introduce
	"legislation...to create an independent board to enhance confidence in Government statistics."
	Something has clearly changed in the past couple of years, whereby Ministers have accepted that there is a serious problem with the perception of official and Government statistics—and, to their credit, they are going to do something about it. The key test that I apply to the Bill is whether it will help official statistics to be perceived as fully independent of Ministers.

Hugh Bayley: If I were to go into any pub in your constituency, Madam Deputy Speaker, or mine, and start talking about statistics, people's eyes would glaze over. However, if I talked about the crime rate or how long it takes to get treatment in a hospital, people might well perk up, listen and express views.
	This debate is important. Statistics are dry as dust but they are an important tool for helping politicians and others such as the media, pressure groups and business to find their way around our system of governance and make informed decisions. Statistics are therefore rather like a compass. I do not regard a compass as an especially interesting bit of kit—at least, I have not since I was a boy of 10 or 11—but it is a vital tool for enabling ships and aircraft to navigate.
	Let me begin by responding to the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon), who defended the Treasury Committee's call for the Government to reduce dramatically the time for pre-releasing statistics. I agree with the Treasury Committee about that. As a former Minister, I knew that I would be required to stand in front of the media to answer questions about statistics released by my Department. It was important for me to have some time to reflect on the figures in advance. I see the hon. Gentleman nodding; he has had the same experience. No one who has been a Minister would want to get rid of the pre-release system altogether. I posed my question to the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs. Villiers), because she was postulating the idea that the statistics board might get rid of pre-release altogether. I do not believe that anyone who has been in government would regard that a sensible idea.
	Before I was elected to the House, I made considerable use of Government statistics as a research fellow and lecturer at the university of York and, to some extent, in other jobs that I held as a full-time trade union negotiator. Anyone who uses or has used Government statistics knows that they need to be accurate, timely and free from political influence. Statistics are key indicators of the economic health of the nation and of the Government's performance not just with respect to economic policy, but in almost any area of public policy.
	I had not intended to make party political points in my speech, but the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet has provoked me. She characterised as a timid step the founding of the independent Statistics Commission, which the present Labour Government brought in as a safeguard for the integrity of statistics, and she apparently regards the important reforms in the Bill as inadequate. She wants us to believe that the Conservative Government were straining at the leash in 1997 to bring in reforms and that if only things had not gone wrong for the Conservatives at the election all this would have happened a long time ago. I really do not believe that at all and I welcome the Government's earlier reforms to increase the independence of the statistical service. I believe that they dealt appropriately with the important need for statistics to be independent.
	In March last year the Government published a consultation document about further proposals. Four broad options were put forward. The first was no change and the second was a parliamentary model for a statistical parallel to the National Audit Office. The third was to strengthen the Statistics Commission, which was introduced some years ago, and the fourth was to create a statutory statistics board. The Government were right, in my view, to reject no change and to reject a strengthened non-statutory Statistics Commission. The Bill shows, of course, that they opted for a statutory board.
	I have to say, however, that I am not wholly convinced that the case against a statistical service located in and funded by Parliament was effectively made. The case was asserted rather than made. The Government rejected a parliamentary statistical service, in part because of the transitional costs of setting it up, but I do not personally believe that to be a good argument. One could criticise the National Audit Office on grounds of cost, but we would not argue against having the NAO on the grounds that it employs hundreds of accountants, economists and other professional analysts.
	The Government state that statistics are a public good, serving a wide range of users—by implication, not just Parliament. Again, one could say the same about the audit of public expenditure and the public policy advice that flows from it. The Government argue that Britain has a long history of decentralised statistics and that those collecting the data on which those statistics are based are situated in many Government Departments. That is certainly the case, but it is right to have those people collecting the data on a departmental basis as departmental civil servants in the same way that it is right to have accountants in Government Departments to monitor the Government's expenditure. We nevertheless think it right for Parliament to have its own team of accountants to audit the work of civil service in-house teams.
	The Government's final argument against having a parliamentary statistical office is that the loss of civil servant status by staff would put at risk the movement of qualified statisticians and professional staff between the various branches of a service—in other words, between those working within the civil service and those working for the parliamentary watchdog. That would be the case only if there were restrictive employment practices, so it is not necessarily the case. I am not convinced that a parliamentary statistical office or service would be wrong, but I accept that the Government and the Treasury Sub-Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks, have decided that accountability to Parliament could be better provided in other ways. Let us look at those other ways.
	In response to views expressed on its consultation document, the Treasury said:
	"The Government expects Parliament to play the central role in holding the statistical system to account".
	In its fine report on independence for statistics, the Treasury Select Committee said:
	"We expect that the House will consider what form select committee scrutiny of the new independent statistics office should take at an early stage of the legislative process."
	We are now at an early stage of the legislative process, so now is the time for the House to discuss how we want our Select Committees to exercise their scrutiny. The Treasury Select Committee took the view that it should continue to take the lead role, provided that Treasury Ministers continue to have residual responsibility for the independent statistical service. Of course, the Treasury Select Committee should retain the right to inquire into any matter for which the Treasury is responsible. However, a new non-ministerial Government Department is being created, so I would like to argue that a new statistics Select Committee should be established.
	The Treasury Committee's report on independence for statistics was an excellent piece of work, for which I commend the Chairman of the Sub-Committee and its members. The Sub-Committee regularly takes evidence from the national statistician and, as the hon. Member for Sevenoaks explained a few moments ago, it has produced other reports on national statistics and other Government statistics from time to time. However, I do not believe that the Treasury Committee, or even the Sub-Committee which is responsible for a wide range of delegated Treasury responsibilities, will provide the level of detailed scrutiny of Government statistics that is needed. If we really believe that Select Committees should be tools that enable us to hold the Government and public policy to account, a case can be made for creating a Select Committee that will produce not one fine report a year on the Government's statistics service—or have only one annual session, grilling the national statistician—but perhaps six or eight reports a year on different aspects of the service, how it operates, the scope of the statistics, the timing of their release and so forth. That would be possible if we had a Select Committee dedicated to that purpose.
	Claus Moser has been cited on many occasions in this debate, which is not surprising as he is the towering figure in British statistics in the post-war period. When I studied statistics at university, more years ago than I care to remember, his was the text book that I used. In his evidence to the Treasury Sub-Committee, he expressed concern about how Parliament would deal with a new non-ministerial Department. He argued that the statistics system covers more than just economic statistics—a point also made by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), speaking for the Liberal Democrats—and concluded that Select Committees other than purely economic Committees in the Commons and the Lords would need to be involved. That suggests to me that he is arguing for a Commons Select Committee on statistics or possibly for a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament, along the lines of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, for instance, as some other hon. Members have also suggested.
	It is not for a Treasury Minister to determine how Parliament decides to scrutinise the Executive; that is a matter for the House. I therefore ask my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to refer my remarks and those of other hon. Members on the scrutiny of a non-ministerial Government statistics Department to the Leader of the House, and to ask the Leader of the House to reply to me in writing.

Brooks Newmark: The intentions that underlie the Bill have been welcomed by hon. Members on both sides of the House as well as by various groups representing producers and users of statistics. While the intentions are clear, however, the delivery is muddled and, as we are dealing with statistics, we should remember that if there is a 50:50 chance that something can go wrong, nine times out of 10 it will.
	The weaknesses in the Bill are such that little will change and some of the uncertainty that it introduces will do more harm than good. Although the short title deals with the independence of statistics, the Bill must also guarantee sufficient scrutiny if the reality of that independence is to be realised. The two strands of independence and scrutiny give rise to a third: that of public confidence, which is the real purpose of the Bill, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon) pointed out. Lord Moser told me when questioned about the structure and powers of the independent board during the Treasury Committee inquiry that
	"if one needs one word, it is 'scrutiny'".
	The hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) also made that point.
	We have all heard the results of the study recently conducted into falling levels of public confidence in statistics, but those not wishing to use statistics to prove the lack of public confidence in statisticians need look no further than the number of jokes made at their expense. Alternatively, they could ask the national statistician, who was quoted on Friday as saying:
	"People often ask why the national inflation figures, which we publish every month, do not seem to correspond with their own experience."
	That was the point that I was trying to make to the Financial Secretary. The example that I gave was that we have the Bank of England basing interest rate decisions on a consumer prices index inflation rate of 2.7 per cent., while the reality for some people, especially pensioners, is an inflation index almost as high as 9 per cent. Is it really surprising that trust is undermined when personal experience seems to bear no relation to official figures? An ONS spokesman said recently:
	"The CPI and RPI are specifically not intended to measure what people often refer to as 'the cost of living'."
	That reasoning is not good enough, because it suggests that the real point of statistics is not to give the public the information that they want but simply to produce the lowest possible number on which to base policy decisions.
	Public confidence stems from clarity and simplicity. Form must follow function in our national statistical architecture, not vice versa. But the form is not just window-dressing. The best impartial statistics in the world are useless if they are not generally believed. The difficulty of the system proposed in the Bill is that it is neither clear nor simple, and its products will be no more likely to be believed by the public than those that are in place at present.
	My first point is that decentralisation of the kind preserved in the Bill does nothing to encourage public confidence in statistics produced by the Government Statistical Service, particularly those not designated as national statistics. As the Committee's inquiry found recently, the public are unlikely to distinguish between different sources of data and the varying standards that apply to each. The scattered delivery of statistics by heads of profession who are based within Government Departments may indeed deliver advantages by placing the statistician closer to users, suppliers and policy makers while sharing expertise across Government, but the question remains over who the user of statistics really is: the Government, the public or both?
	The statisticians of the Government Statistical Service are consistently double-hatted, because they prepare statistics for public consumption and provide the data which inform and monitor the policy of their parent Departments. The Royal Statistical Society is fairly damning about that confusion of roles—it represents a prima facie conflict of interest. As ever, no one can serve two masters. Even if the decentralised structure of UK statistics is to be preserved—the Committee heard strong arguments that it should be—the Bill needs clearly to address that conflict. If it does not, it will in every sense be a missed opportunity.
	Central release of statistics by a single body is one option with compelling advantages for encouraging public trust. It would remove the temptation to use the same departmental officials both to prepare data sets for public consumption and to become involved in their subsequent use by the Departments from which they originated. The Government suggested in their response to the Committee's recommendation in this area that
	"all statisticians in Government will have a line of professional accountability to the National Statistician."
	Not only is that responsibility absent from the Bill, but the reasoning behind it is circular—or perhaps just optimistic—because it merely returns us to the problems implicit in statisticians serving two masters. What happens in the event of a conflict between a civil servant's professional duty to the national statistician and political duty to his or her Department? I find it hard to believe that statisticians themselves will be content with such a potentially duplicitous situation. Does the Minister really have confidence that statisticians will withstand pressure from their immediate superiors in favour of a duty owed to a physically and professionally remote national statistician? Perhaps the code of practice to be developed under clause 10 will have something to say on that point, but we should not have to wait and see.
	Of course, many professionals, including statisticians, are quite used to the idea of reconciling conflicts of interest, and Chinese walls are common in these circumstances. Statisticians have highly organised minds, and they are presumably quite competent in keeping their various responsibilities separate. In recent years, however, the trend has been towards formalising the procedures needed to avoid conflicts of interest, through legislation if necessary. That idea was particularly apparent in the United States in the context of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
	That is exactly what this Bill is meant to do. We are adding legislative weight to the gradual accretion of safeguards that are intended to guarantee the independence of statistics. The Bill ought to be explicit about how statisticians at the Government Statistical Service are expected to resolve a conflict of interest between professional standards and political expectations. If the Bill does not address such a central conflict of interest, that cannot help but damage public confidence. The public do not want another opaque code of practice or informal Chinese wall. They want, and the Bill must deliver, a simple and transparent division of responsibility and accountability.
	My second point is that the Bill must not become a triumph of form over substance by neglecting to provide an inclusive definition of what constitutes national statistics. Not enough has been done to address the false dichotomy between designated national statistics and other official statistics. The Government's consultation response was adamant, if slightly unctuous, about the public's ownership of statistics, saying twice that statistics "are a public good". If that is the case, the public's ownership is still heavily mortgaged to the good will of Ministers.
	The Phillis review affirmed the principle that
	"statistics about crime, or the performance of the police, schools, hospitals and the like, belong in essence to the public, not to government or the party in government."
	However, the Government's response to the Committee's concerns affirmed that
	"It will be a matter for Ministers...to propose statistics for assessment by the new Board",
	and that idea is central to the Bill. By keeping any statistics that are not "national statistics" outside the purview of the proposed code of practice, the Bill invites Ministers to ensure that their statistical output remains under their control and is subject to less stringent auditing.
	It is no accident that the statistics in which the public are most interested—those on health, education and crime—are not national statistics. As we heard earlier, maintaining the existing anomalies of classification does little to encourage public faith in the system. There must be a resolution to issues such as the presentation of quarterly hospital waiting lists, but not monthly waiting lists, as national statistics.
	I am also concerned about the absence of the customary "carrot and stick" inducements that might encourage Ministers to ensure that their outputs are designated as national statistics. The vain hope that Ministers will want their statistics to be awarded a quality kite-mark is wishful thinking; I suspect that pigs will fly before Ministers scramble to fly their kite-marks. We need to examine methods of inducement or compulsion.
	The Committee was very clear that the Government were in danger of formalising a two-tier structure with their proposals and were missing an opportunity to consolidate and simplify the existing system. We must be more rigorous about divorcing the admitted benefits of decentralisation from damage to public confidence done by ministerial control over outputs. I hope to return to that issue in Committee.
	My third point is that in addition to a marked lack of certainty about delivery and content, the Bill introduces some very worrying confusion about the role of the national statistician. I am grateful that the Government responded to the Committee's concerns about the national statistician's title, but in many ways that was the Committee's least significant concern because it dealt with form, not function.
	It seems strange that the formal separation of the executive and oversight functions is still lacking in the Bill, given that elsewhere the Government are pursuing the doctrine of the separation of powers with all the fervour of a recent convert to the gospel according to Montesquieu. Much like the staff of the Government Statistical Service, the national statistician is expected to wear more than one hat—as chief executive of the board, head of the Government Statistical Service and chief adviser to the Government on statistical matters.
	However, the board's responsibility for both its own statistical output and oversight of the national statistician's work is more problematic, which was a point made earlier. The conflation of executive functions and a role in scrutiny is a recipe for uncertainty and it is not clear how the new arrangements will improve existing oversight. At the same time, the abolition of the Statistics Commission will do little to bolster public faith in the system. The Bill has another spasm of optimism about the national statistician's advisory role by imputing to Ministers a willingness to listen to advice rather than recognising the occasional need to compel them or—in extremis—to remove decisions on statistics from them altogether. In short, the national statistician must not be toothless.
	My final point is that the ambiguous place of scrutiny in the Bill raises concerns about the residual involvement of Ministers in the operation of the board. The announcement of the board as a non-ministerial Department has made a positive splash, but if Ministers can continue to play the part of eminence grise with impunity, it remains a sop to independence. That will be of particular concern if the board remains under the auspices of the Treasury, which is the largest single producer-cum-consumer of statistics; many whiffs of Government interference in statistics occur in connection with it.
	A suspicious person needs to look no further than the movement of the "golden rule" goalposts, about which we heard earlier from my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks, or the scrap between the ONS and the NAO about whether to classify Network Rail's debt as off-balance sheet. As a suspicious person myself, I have recently drawn attention to the slow drip of more than £11 billion of private finance initiative debt on to the Government's balance sheet in the past 18 months as a result of ONS reclassification. Perhaps my hon. Friend was being diplomatic; I shall not be as diplomatic with the Economic Secretary—although I notice that he is not in his place. Did the Treasury exercise some restraint over the ONS in those belated decisions? If so, how much similar debt still awaits reclassification? We do not want to have to ask such questions of a new board.
	The Bill also proposes that the Chancellor should relinquish control of the retail prices index, and I think that everyone agrees that that is well overdue. However, clause 19 provides a caveat to protect bondholders from fundamental changes to the RPI. That is rather like the Chancellor ceding control of interest rates to the Bank of England except in cases when, for example, a change would adversely affect mortgage lenders—a rather pointless gesture. In any event, the proposal is not likely to convince the public that the Chancellor does not retain the whip hand; again, the issue becomes one of public confidence. At the very least, we need to look again at whether a transfer of residual responsibility should not, after all, be made from the Treasury to the Cabinet Office, as was suggested by the Royal Statistical Society. Perhaps that would be "back to the future".
	To conclude, the Bill is as much a test of perceived as of real independence. As it stands, the Bill fails to clear the former hurdle before even getting started on the latter. The nuts and bolts will become a matter for debate in Committee, but I am concerned that Ministers are not sufficiently sensitive to the need for the public to have total faith in the Government's commitment to both independence and oversight. If the Bill is not unequivocal about encouraging public trust, there is no point in getting started on the detail. I look forward to a reiteration of that commitment in the Minister's reply.

Edward Balls: I join the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) in paying tribute to speakers from both sides of the House in what has been a wide-ranging and informed debate. I shall do my best to do justice to the contributions from hon. Members from across the House. I thank them for the time that they have taken to prepare and contribute; I am sure that they will continue to show an active interest in the stages to come. I am sure that the Committee stage will be long and detailed and that much will be discussed. Given the standard of this debate, I am sure that in Committee there will be many interventions from both sides of the House.
	It is notable that a number of former Ministers made interesting contributions, including my hon. Friends the Members for City of York (Hugh Bayley), for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) and for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), and the hon. Members for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) and for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon), who, once he got beyond the party politics of debates about PFI and pension liabilities and on to the serious substance of his speech, made an important contribution.
	I make particular reference to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon). As the hon. Member for Fareham said, he has campaigned for a decade to see the measures introduced in the Bill come to fruition, to ensure that registrars enjoy the employment rights that other people take for granted. People ask what the point of a parliamentary career or a ten-minute Bill is—all those hours of work and effort. In the coming years, the result of all his campaigning work, and the reality of this Bill, will be seen all around the country. We commend him for all his work over the years.
	I want to address a number of the detailed points, but first let me make a few comments to give some context. As my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary said, the Bill is historic. It is the next stage in what has been a radical programme of reform of the institutions of British economic policy since 1997: the independence of the Bank of England, the new, statutory Financial Services Authority, the Debt Management Office, the code of fiscal stability and the independence of the competition authorities.
	For each of those reforms, we put in legislation a requirement for clear and unambiguous objectives and a proper division of responsibilities, with case-by-case decisions being taken at arm's length from Ministers, but having proper ministerial and parliamentary accountability and maximum transparency and scrutiny. The reforms of the statistical system that we put forward today are firmly in that tradition. In 2000 we introduced the framework for national statistics, the most far-reaching reform of the statistical system in over 30 years. The Bill builds on those reforms and on the strengths of the United Kingdom statistical system by retaining our decentralising approach to the collection and provision of statistics, while at the same time enshrining independence in statute. The quality and coherence of statistics throughout the United Kingdom will be further secured with the full participation of all devolved Administrations, which is a very welcome aspect of the Bill.
	I shall say more about the role of Parliament later. Some have argued, as I believe the hon. Member for Fareham did a moment ago, that rather than adopting our evolutionary approach to independence we should have used the model of the National Audit Office. As my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary made clear, we consider the production of statistics to be an executive function most appropriately located in Government, rather than in Parliament. As we have also made clear, with the exception of Mongolia no country has created a precedent by placing the control of statistics in the hands of Parliament rather than those of the Executive. However, we make plain in the Bill that—through scrutiny of legislation and secondary legislation, but also through the way in which both the Executive and the independent statistical service are held to account—the role of Parliament will be not just important, but substantially enhanced. I shall return to that issue shortly.
	We will have ample time in which to debate the details of the Bill, but I think we are introducing a system that will meet our ideals and objectives. The Government believe that these reforms will accord with our principles in delivering high-quality, high-integrity statistics involving clearly defined roles and responsibilities, transparency, flexibility and value for money, as well as independence for the decision makers.
	I am glad to say that the broad objectives of the Bill and the principle of independence for statistics have been strongly welcomed by the House today. I can also say that the Government's decision to legislate for independence has been widely welcomed outside the House. We have consulted in depth on our detailed proposals, and we have received a very thorough report from the Treasury Committee.
	I think it fair to say, on the basis of the consultation and today's debate, that there is no single framework for independent statistics, and no clear consensus on the details of the model that we should adopt. Today we have observed some differences over how we should make a reality of independence, particularly in the context of the separation of the board's executive and scrutiny roles—an issue raised by the hon. Members for Chipping Barnet (Mrs. Villiers), for Sevenoaks, for Braintree (Mr. Newmark) and for Worthing, West. Another issue was the scope of the board's responsibility for official statistics and ministerial nomination of statistics for assessment, which was raised by the hon. Members for Chipping Barnet, for Sevenoaks and for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke). A third was the role of Ministers in pre-release access to data, raised by the hon. Members for Sevenoaks, for Chipping Barnet, for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) and for South-West Hertfordshire. I shall deal with all three issues very briefly.
	First let me deal with governance. Some have called for the establishment of two separate boards, one responsible for delivery and the other for scrutiny. That would have meant putting the Statistics Commission on a statutory footing, separate from statistical production. We considered the option carefully, but in our view a single institutional structure provides the most effective way of delivering greater independence for the ONS, independent scrutiny, and oversight of the statistical system as a whole, while avoiding the creation of competing centres of expertise.
	We have introduced a number of measures to ensure a proper separation of production from assessment. That applies not least to the head of assessment, who will be appointed by the non-executive board members while being distinct and separate from the executive members, and will lead the staff work on assessment issues. Decisions on whether to approve something as a national statistic cannot be delegated, but must be made by the full board.
	We do not believe that the structure replicates the problems cited by the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet. I think that the analogy with the BBC is a false one, although I am sure that the Committee will examine the issue in detail.
	The hon. Member for Braintree feared that the role of the national statistician might be downgraded.

Edward Balls: There is a danger that we will hold the entire Committee proceedings in this final summing-up speech, and I shall try to avoid that risk. Previously under the current regime, the head of the ONS was not a decision maker on a number of subjects, which were matters for Ministers. The new national statistician will be an independent decision maker on a range of operational matters, as well as on the integrity of statistics. The view was taken that, given that we were strengthening the role of the ONS and moving to a statutory basis, we could build on the Statistics Commission's experience and turn it into a fully fledged and statutory board. So all the functions presently undertaken by the commission will be taken over, in statute, by the board, which will also take over a number of functions currently carried out by Ministers that relate to the budgeting of the ONS and the national statistician. My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary has explained in detail the way in which those new funding arrangements will work, and that we will move to a five-year budgeting process. I have done the best that I can in a Second Reading debate to explain our thinking, and if it is okay I shall now move on—but there will be plenty of time to scrutinise these issues in Committee.
	The hon. Member for Twickenham referred to the issue of the Treasury versus the Cabinet Office, and the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire helpfully reminded us—as did the hon. Member for Sevenoaks—that the Treasury Committee recommended that the Treasury retain those residual functions. That is what we have decided to do, having listened intently, where we could, to the advice of the Treasury Committee.
	The second issue was scope, about which there was some discussion.

Edward Balls: Not for the first time, there is a little dissonance between the Treasury Committee and Ministers. The fact is that the board will have a duty to report on coverage and to scrutinise best practice. If, in the judgment of the board, there are gaps, I am sure that it will make its views public to Parliament. The issue is whether the decision to designate, with its potential resource implications, should be made outside the Executive's decisions on resource allocation. The judgment of the Government, which is reflected in the Bill, is that those decisions should be made by Ministers, but they will be scrutinised. The board's wider responsibilities require it to scrutinise such decisions actively.
	My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary made clear our agreement with the Treasury Committee Sub-Committee that there is a case in principle for pre-release. That case was also echoed by several former Ministers. The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet was the only hon. Member who appeared to doubt the case for pre-release. I shall give one example, because the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire asked for one.
	The obvious example in the current monetary policy framework is the open letter system. If, on the basis of pre-release information, it became clear to the Bank of England and the Treasury that inflation was likely to deviate more than one percentage point beyond the inflation target, the Bank could produce an open letter that it could publish simultaneously with the inflation figures. The Treasury would then be able to respond very quickly, as required under our procedures, to that open letter. If instead there was no pre-release and the figure was launched on to the markets without any preparation, the Bank would have to move quickly to produce an open letter, but that would take some hours or even days. The Treasury would not be able to respond until the Bank had published its letter, and there would be a period of uncertainty and potential instability in the financial markets. That is a clear reason why, for operational and policy purposes, pre-release is essential to the smooth and stable operation of monetary policy—and there are many other examples. Luckily, the open letter system has not had to be used, because inflation has been slow and stable.
	There is clearly a debate about how pre-release should operate in practice, which will be held in the House when details of the regulations are published. They will then be debated in Committee under the affirmative resolution procedure. My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary has made it clear that we will review the operation of the system after 12 months to see whether the pre-release system set out to Parliament is operating consistently with the principles guiding our approach. That is a good step forward, which, combined with the tightening of the pre-release system, means a substantial advance on the position on pre-release that we inherited from the previous Government in 1997, but there will be a full opportunity for Parliament to debate the matter if it judges that it wants to go further. That is a matter for Parliament.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 83A(6) (Programme motions),
	That the following provisions shall apply to the Statistics and Registration Service Bill:
	 Committal
	1. The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.
	 Proceedings in Public Bill Committee
	2. Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 25th January 2007.
	3. The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
	 Consideration and Third Reading
	4. Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
	5. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
	6. Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on consideration and Third Reading.
	 Other proceedings
	7. Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or any further messages from the Lords) may be programmed.— [Liz Blackman.]
	 Question agreed to.

Queen's recommendation having been signified—
	 Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52 (Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with bills),
	That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Statistics and Registration Service Bill it is expedient to authorise—
	(1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by the Statistics Board;
	(2) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.— [Liz Blackman.]
	 Question agreed to.

Edward Davey: My constituent, Bisher al-Rawi, lives in New Malden, Surrey, but he is currently in camp 5, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has been imprisoned there by the Americans for over four years, without charge or trial, and has been subjected to continual degradation and torture. That would all be bad enough, but there is undeniable evidence—we have the telegrams—that MI5, and therefore the UK Government, was complicit in Bisher's illegal arrest, complicit in his rendition, and complicit in his long, illegal detention. As MI5 must have known about the psychological torture techniques of the United States, I believe that the UK has been complicit in his torture, too.
	Whatever Bisher may or may not have done—I believe that he is innocent—he has suffered a huge injustice, and has been denied basic human and legal rights. His likely innocence only makes that injustice even more intolerable. Ministers have been aware of Bisher's case all along. I first contacted the Foreign Office in late 2002, when Bisher's brother-in-law came to see me, and when Bisher was still in the Gambia. There have been many letters and many meetings with Ministers since, yet throughout the UK Government have failed to admit their complicity and have denied any moral responsibility for Bisher. Instead, Ministers have chosen to hide behind the fact that Bisher is "only" a British resident, having come to the UK, aged 16, 23 years ago, fleeing with his family from Saddam Hussein.
	Although his family became British citizens, Bisher and his family decided that he would retain Iraqi citizenship so that his family might one day be able to reclaim their Iraqi property. As a result, the British Government have always refused to make formal representations for him—until last March. Faced with a court hearing in which it would emerge that Bisher had worked for MI5, the Government did a volte-face and agreed to represent him.
	However, the problem is that it does not seem as if the Government are trying that hard for Bisher, or if they are, that they are any good at making representations to the United States—our closest ally—as Bisher remains in Guantanamo. Indeed, if anything, his situation is worse. Immediately after the Government agreed to ask for Bisher's return, he was thrown into the top-security isolation camp 5 for refusing to answer questions that he has been asked hundreds of times before. All three of his attorneys, who have seen Bisher in the past few months, agree that his mental health is deteriorating fast.
	I will tell Bisher's story tonight, but I start with three questions. First, why have the Government failed to secure Bisher's release, after promising that they would do so back in March? Secondly, how are the current discussions with the United States on Bisher's release proceeding, and is there a timetable for his release? Thirdly, will the Foreign Office now request that the Prime Minister himself urgently raises Bisher's case with the US president, direct, to help to secure Bisher's immediate release and return to the United Kingdom?
	I shall rewind, and give Bisher's full story but, first, I wish to pay tribute to his family, who have shown a great deal of courage during this difficult period. I pay tribute to his lawyers, both American and British, who have worked with huge determination and intelligence to try to secure Bisher's release. I pay tribute to the late Mark Jennings, who worked in my office before leaving to work tirelessly for Bisher's release. Bisher al-Rawi was born in 1967 to a well-to-do Iraqi family. His great-grandfather, a Prime Minister of Jordan in the 1920s, helped to write the country's constitution and was a fervent backer of democracy. His late father, Dr. al-Rawi, a successful Iraqi businessman, was imprisoned by Saddam Hussein for 18 months. He was tortured during that period but, ironically, given Bisher's circumstances, a court in Saddam's regime ordered his release, and the family fled to the United Kingdom. In the UK, Bisher had a privileged and very English upbringing, He was privately educated in Cambridge before being sent to Millfield public school. He went on to read material engineering at University college London. He was loved by all his family and friends, and he was exceedingly popular.
	How did Bisher come to the notice of the authorities? He got to know the radical Islamic cleric, Abu Qatada, who is alleged to have links with al-Qaeda. Indeed, Abu Qatada has been variously described as a truly dangerous individual and a key figure in al-Qaeda-related terror activities, although he denies such allegations. Deportation proceedings against him are pending, but I can state categorically that he has never been charged with any wrongdoing. It appears that my constituent has been illegally imprisoned for four years solely on the basis that he was an associate of Abu Qatada. I should therefore like to ask the Minister for Trade why the authorities have never charged Abu Qatada with any terrorist activity. Is Bisher guilty by association with someone who has never been charged with any crime? Will the Minister confirm that Bisher helped MI5 by serving as a translator and carrying messages between it and Abu Qatada? In an astonishing statement in 2005 to his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, in Guantanamo, Bisher recounted how he worked with MI5. He claimed to have worked with a number of agents, whom he names as Alex, Matt and Martin. He described a large number of meetings and telephone calls, in which he used a mobile phone provided by MI5, that took place over a period of months.
	MI5 lost track of Abu Qatada, and it was Bisher who told it that he knew where he was before acting as a go-between. In his statement to Clive Stafford Smith, Bisher explained how difficult that period was, as he was criticised by both MI5 and Abu Qatada. Bisher requested an MI5 lawyer, as he was worried that he would be incriminated by MI5. An MI5 lawyer using the name Simon assured Bisher that he did not run any risk, and that MI5 would assist him if he got into trouble as a result of his association with Abu Qatada—some promise from MI5. Around July 2002, Bisher said that MI5 broke off the relationship, and he did not hear anything more from it until he met its agents again in Guantanamo.
	That leads me to the next stage of the story—Bisher's arrest in Gambia. In the second half of 2002, Bisher became involved with a business idea that his brother, Wahab, put together for a mobile peanut processing plant in Gambia, together with a team of friends, including a British citizen, Abdullah El-Janoudi, and Jamil Al-Banna, who is a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather). She is in the Chamber, and she has campaigned hard, both for her constituent and, with me, against the injustices of Guantanamo. Because of proceedings that are under way, she is unable to intervene in our debate. On 1 November, Bisher and Jamil went to Gatwick airport to fly to Gambia to join Wahab. They were detained at Gatwick, and were held in Paddington Green police station on the grounds that a supposedly suspicious electronic device had been found in Bisher's luggage. Their homes and computers were searched, but nothing was found. Eventually, they were released, and the police confirmed that the suspicious device was a battery charger available at outlets of Argos.
	However, during this period MI5 was contacting the US authorities, telling them that Bisher and Jamil were intending to travel to the Gambia, and that Bisher was an "Islamic extremist" who had been found with a "suspicious device"—the battery charger. Months later, when Bisher was undergoing his combatant status review tribunal in Guantanamo, the Americans used allegations about the "suspicious device" as evidence that he was an enemy combatant.
	On 8 November 2002, Bisher and Jamil once again went to Gatwick, having been told by MI5 that there was now no problem with their trip. At the same time, MI5 was informing CIA agents in the Gambia of their names and flight details, so they were arrested at the airport, questioned by the Gambians and handed over to the CIA. After four weeks of questioning, the two British citizens, Wahab and Abdullah El-Janoudi, were sent back to the UK. Bisher and Jamil, however, were detained and then rendered to Afghanistan by the CIA on 8 December 2002.
	After a truly dreadful period in the so-called dark prison, the two men were transferred to Bagram airfield near Kabul, and after another two months of questioning and abuse, to Guantanamo. I give only a brief account of this awful time to prove one key point: that British secret services were utterly complicit in the arrest and rendition of Bisher and Jamil, as several independent inquiries into rendition have found, including one conducted by the European Parliament.
	Let me ask the Minister the following questions. Why was Bisher not detained permanently in London prior to travelling to the Gambia, if the UK Government suspected him of being a terrorist? Will the Foreign Office confirm the authenticity of the telegrams produced during the judicial proceedings, which were supposedly sent by MI5 to the American authorities in the Gambia in November 2002? When did the British Government become aware that Bisher had been rendered to Kabul, Afghanistan, and what, if any, action was taken?
	Given the tortures suffered during this period, let me ask two further questions. Did the British Government or their secret services know that Bisher and Jamil had been delivered to the Americans to be tortured? On the Americans and torture more generally, are the British Government aware that when the US signed the UN convention against torture in 1994, it did so with four carefully detailed diplomatic "reservations" focusing on one word in the convention's 26 printed pages? That word was "mental". Are the UK Government aware, therefore, that the US retains, in its eyes, the legal power to commit psychological torture?
	Since that initial period in the Gambia and Afghanistan, Bisher has been a long time in Guantanamo. He has frequently endured periods of abuse—lights on 24 hours a day to make it difficult to sleep. On one occasion he used the 15 sheets of toilet paper that detainees are given each day to cover his eyes. They were taken away from him for misuse. He suffered abuse with artificial temperature extremes. One week the air conditioning is shut off to expose detainees to heat that rises to 95°; the next week the air conditioning is blasted at maximum to leave the detainees shivering. On one occasion, Bisher used his prayer rug to cover himself because he was so cold. It was taken away, again for misuse.
	UK officials know about the abuse because Bisher's lawyers have given them a deposition. Can the Minister tell me whether the British Government have taken any action to persuade the Americans to desist from the psychological torture of Bisher and other detainees? Perhaps the most important question is why the US has kept Bisher in Guantanamo for so long. Judging from the records in Bisher's combatant status review tribunal, a Mickey Mouse procedure ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court, and judging by Bisher's interviews with his lawyers, the only thing about Bisher in which the US is really interested is Abu Qatada. I believe they want Bisher to incriminate Abu Qatada and hope that Bisher will help them communicate once more with Abu Qatada.
	Beyond Abu Qatada, the US seems to have no interest in Bisher at all. Indeed, few people, if any, in MI5 or, as I have been told, the US State Department now consider Bisher to be a serious security risk. So why are they keeping Bisher? We have been told that the Bush Administration want to close down Guantanamo Bay, and we have been told that the British Government are against Guantanamo Bay, so why keep Bisher?
	The situation is even more confusing when one considers the Government U-turn last March. Faced with a hearing in which Bisher's work for MI5 would come out—no doubt MI5 agents would have been asked to give evidence—the Treasury solicitor agreed to make formal representations for Bisher to the United States, something that the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), the then Foreign Secretary, had told me on more than one occasion that he was not prepared to do.
	I welcomed that U-turn, but it prompted a serious question: why did the UK Government not make the request at an earlier date? Why, given all the evidence including representations by me and the family, did the British Government have to wait until March 2006 and the pressure of a court hearing before they decided to make representations for Bisher? Now that the Government have started to make those representations, why has there apparently been so little progress? Why are the Government not making representations for all the British residents, and why are they not making them now and fervently?
	I hope that the Minister will answer a few questions about the representations that the Government have tried to carry out. Will he tell me when the request for the release and return of Bisher al-Rawi, which was promised on 22 March 2006 by the Treasury solicitor, was first made? On how many subsequent occasions has that request for Bisher's return been followed up by either Ministers or officials, on which dates and with what effect? What have been the main elements of the US response to the UK's request for Bisher's release? Above all, what is the latest development and expectation for any ongoing discussions with the Americans on Bisher?
	After the Government said that they would make representations, I waited a few months and then met a State Department representative in Washington last year to find out how the representations were going. I was shocked to learn how inter-agency rivalries, especially between the State Department and the Defence Department, were a real problem. I learned that the Pentagon, not the State Department, was calling the shots. Indeed, the State Department was extremely uninterested in representations from our Foreign Secretary and made it pretty clear that the Defence Department was even less interested.
	The Pentagon has some very bureaucratic procedures for considering a detainee's release, all of which are based around a detainee's file. Clearly, a detainee will not be released by the Pentagon if their file contains any grounds for continuing detention. Much of the contents of Bisher's file would have come from MI5, which is why I followed up my meeting with the State Department with a meeting with the Minister last July. I made the unusual request for the Minister somehow to get MI5 to review all the evidence and information provided by the UK to the US about Bisher, so that any mistakes sitting in Bisher's file, such as the mistake about the battery charger, could be rectified. At the time, the Minister did not give me a full assurance that he would do so, but I ask the Minister tonight whether it has been done. Have the UK Government ever sought to correct, clarify or withdraw any inaccurate allegations contained in the information provided to the United States by MI5 in respect of Bisher? If not, why not? If so, when and to what effect? If such a request has not been made, will the Minister assure me that it will be done immediately?
	If the Minister cannot give me such an assurance, I hope that he will understand my alarm. According to the lawyers who have met Bisher over the past few months, Bisher's health is deteriorating fast. A recent legal declaration by one of Bisher's lawyers states:
	"In my opinion, his extended isolation and harsh conditions of confinement are causing him severe mental distress and may have a lasting negative psychological impact. I am particularly concerned by the deterioration I have observed over time. To put it simply, my greatest fear is that Mr Al Rawi, if not released immediately from prison will no longer be Mr Al Rawi."
	Can the Minister tell me how those health concerns are affecting negotiations about Bisher? What efforts have been made to have UK consulate and medical officials visit him, and indeed the other British residents? What reports on Bisher's health have been given to the Minister?
	When I reflect on this sorry state of affairs, I reflect on the need to wage a battle against terrorism to ensure that its evil does not go around the world. I look at Bisher's case and think what signal it sends to Muslims and Arabs who want to help in the fight against terrorism—absolutely the wrong signal. Bisher is an example of someone who wanted to help the British secret services and to help to prevent terrorism—and this is how he has been treated. I cannot think of a worse way of trying to tackle terrorism.
	For Bisher and his family, it is time that this injustice was ended. It is time that the British Government made amends for the many failings to date, especially by MI5. It is time that the Prime Minister made a personal request to President Bush to secure the release of Bisher al-Rawi from Guantanamo.

Ian McCartney: That is a mere technicality. Later this year, it will be 20 years since I came into the House, but these things still confuse me. I apologise, Mr. Speaker; I should have sat down at the point when you wanted me to. I apologise to the Whips as well.
	I reiterate that we are committed to securing Mr. al-Rawi's release from Guantanamo Bay and his return to the UK. We believe that our work should be allowed to come to a successful conclusion. I will keep the hon. Gentleman informed of any developments. I am sure that the House will understand that.
	The hon. Gentleman also raised concerns about Mr. al-Rawi's health and the conditions of his detention. I stress that we continue to raise humanitarian concerns about detentions at Guantanamo Bay with the US authorities. As part of our regular exchanges with the United States, we have raised on a number of occasions issues relating to detainees who were formerly resident in the UK, including Mr. al-Rawi. The hon. Gentleman asked me a question about that, and I confirm that that is the case.
	Following contact with Mr. al-Rawi's lawyers just before Christmas, we raised specific concerns about his conditions of detention and health with the United States Government. They were the same concerns that the hon. Gentleman has expressed in the House this evening, and the US Government have confirmed to us that they are looking into them. We are taking full account of Mr. al-Rawi's well-being in our work to secure his release. The hon. Gentleman asked me specific questions on that. Yes, we have raised those issues with the United States Government, and yes, that is part of the process of working to secure Mr. al-Rawi's release.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about Abu Qatada. The House should be in no doubt about the threat that we believe Abu Qatada poses to the United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman is right to refer to Abu Qatada as "a truly dangerous individual" who is
	"at the centre in the UK of terrorist activities associated with Al-Qaeda".
	These are not the words of the hon. Gentleman. They are not my words or the words of any Minister or Government official. They are the words of the judge who considered the national security evidence against Abu Qatada in proceedings under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. The hon. Gentleman asked for evidence. Under that Act, that was the view of a member of the independent judiciary. The judge made those comments, and Abu Qatada has since been detained pending his deportation to Jordan.
	The hon. Gentleman made certain remarks about Mr. al-Rawi and MI5. I am not going to go into intelligence matters here. The House would not expect me to do so; nor am I going to.